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All Hail the Glow Cloud(s)
May. 22nd, 2015 04:06 amOn Tuesday my girlfriend and I journeyed to the distant land of Northampton to see a live show of Welcome to Night Vale. I've been listening to the podcast for about a year and a half and never really expected to attend a live show. I wasn't even sure how I felt about the idea. After all, normally the show is only audio, but at a live show there would be things to see. One of the things to see would be other fans, some of whom would doubtless be in costume.
There's no official word on what the characters look like beyond generalities, such as the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home not having a face (though even that is up for debate if you believe Kevin), or the colors of the many dragon heads of Hiram McDaniels. But there seems to be a general fan consensus on some things, so that you can look at a person and guess that they are dressed as Cecil, for example. This in spite of the fact that they might not match your own mental image of Cecil.
Going to a live show would mean being confronted with someone else's interpretation of what a character looks like, as well as what the voice actor looks like, and I felt apprehensive about how that would affect my own mental images of things.
Plus, crowds. Not my favorite thing.
But on the other hand...it really seemed like it might be fun. And sometimes it's fun to hang out with crowds of people if you have something in common with that crowd of people.
So off we went. We made a couple of stops on the way to see an art exhibit and visit the comic store I used to patronize often back in college. We did not get lost nor eaten by librarians, and made it to the venue in plenty of time with all of our limbs intact.
The theater was nice, though the seats were a little small. Our particular seats were nicely located, though, at the front of a section in the balcony so that there was plenty of space for people to walk past us as they went to their seats, and we could see just fine.
It was actually fun to see people in costume, perhaps because there was more variety than I expected...in additional to the predictable Cecils, Kevins, and Carloses, there was at least one winged individual presumably named Erika, a man in a tan jacket (though I did not see a deerskin suitcase), a probable Old Woman Josie, several mysterious hooded figures, and no less than two Glow Clouds. I...had not expected to see a Glow Cloud.*
Having listened to the previous live shows I had certain expectations for how the show would work in general, some of which were slightly off. Particularly, I hadn't expected the musical guest for The Weather to perform five or six songs before the show. Though on further consideration it sort of makes more sense...who wants to tour the country with this production and play only one song at each show?
Meg Bashwiner's introduction and listing of The Rules was very entertaining, and I'm sort of sorry it doesn't make it into the live recordings.
The show itself was fun, and it was a nice trip overall. Didn't see much else of Northampton, so I don't have much of an opinion about the city in general, though any place with an ice cream stand open until 11:00 PM scores at least a few points in my book (and my ice cream was pretty good).
It did make for long day, and by the end I was ready to fall asleep on my feet except that I very badly needed to get off my feet and out of my shoes. Overall, good times, though.
* I'm not sure they get many Glow Clouds. The one closest to the stage fired up their blinking multi-colored lights as Meg was bidding farewell to the audience, and she seemed a bit caught off guard by it. But then she hailed the Almighty Glow Cloud, and the audience all hailed the Glow Cloud in response, and it must have been pretty awesome for the person dressed as the Glow Cloud.
There's no official word on what the characters look like beyond generalities, such as the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home not having a face (though even that is up for debate if you believe Kevin), or the colors of the many dragon heads of Hiram McDaniels. But there seems to be a general fan consensus on some things, so that you can look at a person and guess that they are dressed as Cecil, for example. This in spite of the fact that they might not match your own mental image of Cecil.
Going to a live show would mean being confronted with someone else's interpretation of what a character looks like, as well as what the voice actor looks like, and I felt apprehensive about how that would affect my own mental images of things.
Plus, crowds. Not my favorite thing.
But on the other hand...it really seemed like it might be fun. And sometimes it's fun to hang out with crowds of people if you have something in common with that crowd of people.
So off we went. We made a couple of stops on the way to see an art exhibit and visit the comic store I used to patronize often back in college. We did not get lost nor eaten by librarians, and made it to the venue in plenty of time with all of our limbs intact.
The theater was nice, though the seats were a little small. Our particular seats were nicely located, though, at the front of a section in the balcony so that there was plenty of space for people to walk past us as they went to their seats, and we could see just fine.
It was actually fun to see people in costume, perhaps because there was more variety than I expected...in additional to the predictable Cecils, Kevins, and Carloses, there was at least one winged individual presumably named Erika, a man in a tan jacket (though I did not see a deerskin suitcase), a probable Old Woman Josie, several mysterious hooded figures, and no less than two Glow Clouds. I...had not expected to see a Glow Cloud.*
Having listened to the previous live shows I had certain expectations for how the show would work in general, some of which were slightly off. Particularly, I hadn't expected the musical guest for The Weather to perform five or six songs before the show. Though on further consideration it sort of makes more sense...who wants to tour the country with this production and play only one song at each show?
Meg Bashwiner's introduction and listing of The Rules was very entertaining, and I'm sort of sorry it doesn't make it into the live recordings.
The show itself was fun, and it was a nice trip overall. Didn't see much else of Northampton, so I don't have much of an opinion about the city in general, though any place with an ice cream stand open until 11:00 PM scores at least a few points in my book (and my ice cream was pretty good).
It did make for long day, and by the end I was ready to fall asleep on my feet except that I very badly needed to get off my feet and out of my shoes. Overall, good times, though.
* I'm not sure they get many Glow Clouds. The one closest to the stage fired up their blinking multi-colored lights as Meg was bidding farewell to the audience, and she seemed a bit caught off guard by it. But then she hailed the Almighty Glow Cloud, and the audience all hailed the Glow Cloud in response, and it must have been pretty awesome for the person dressed as the Glow Cloud.
